“Or if he should not!” suggested Mr. Bryce. “Nay, child, we’ll permit no doleful foretellings. What’s up, Jack? ’Tis no ill news to you to be ordered to the seat of war?”
“Ill news? No!”—with sufficient energy.
“Yet you look uncommon like to a thunder-cloud—ready to burst. Hey, what’s wrong?”
“Could wish nothing better than to go, sir. Every man in the Army is wild to be off. But I’m angry, I’ll admit. ’Tis inconceivable that such a man as Sir John should have enemies, yet there’s no other explanation.”
“Enemies where?”
“I’m not so bold as to say. But ’tis a fact that, after serving in Sicily and in Sweden as chief in command, he’s now to be placed in a subordinate position as third. I’ve heard Major Napier declaim against the shame it was that they didn’t make him from the first supreme Commander in Sicily; but this—why, ’tis infinitely greater shame. The thing is beyond comprehension!”
“Yet the King and the Duke of York are ever his friends,” mused Mr. Bryce, passing a meditative hand over his chin. “And Lord Castlereagh esteems him highly.”
“So all say; but the chopping and the changing that’s to take place—’tis amazing! There’s Sir Arthur Wellesley in command of one army gone to Spain, and Sir John till now in command of another, and both of ’em to be under Sir Hew Dalrymple when he can get to Portugal, and till he does, Sir Harry Burrard is to act for him. Moore—the foremost and most brilliant officer England has ever owned—to be under Burrard and Dalrymple! Has the world gone crazed?”
“For what reason are the changes?” asked Mr. Bryce.
“I know not, sir, and I care not! Sir John has done nothing to merit such treatment. ’Tis a base shame, and that’s about all that can be said. But he’ll rise to the top—small fear! When the need arises, he will be the man whom all will turn unto.”